Michael Winship: Debates, commercials and other afflictions

I’ve been sick in bed for a little bit, felled by a flu more powerful than a locomotive, hastened by a few too many days on Writers Guild picket lines in the chill and drear of a Manhattan November.

Michael Winship

I’ve been sick in bed for a little bit, felled by a flu more powerful than a locomotive, hastened by a few too many days on Writers Guild picket lines in the chill and drear of a Manhattan November.

One mixed blessing: too dizzy to read, I had a chance to focus on that most treacherous medium, the one in which I allegedly make a living when not on strike, TV.

I was struck by two commercials in particular that seemed to sum up the decline of civilization. One was an ABC promo for the annual rebroadcast of the gentlest of children’s specials, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Just a couple of weeks ago, an episode of the public television American Masters series focused on the life of Charlie Brown’s progenitor, Charles M. Schulz. At one point, it told the story of the Christmas show’s creation more than 40 years ago; how the special’s original network, CBS, resisted the program’s reverent presentation of the Nativity and its message condemning the commercialism of the holiday. Until the ratings came out the next morning — half the country had tuned in. CBS ordered four more.

The 21st-century version of a network crass act was the ABC promo for this year’s airing. It began with a shot of a festive Snoopy accompanied by a shrill announcer’s voice screaming, “WHASSUP, DAWG!?” If Charles Schulz were still alive, the next day’s front pages might have read, “Peanuts Creator Guns Down TV Executives, Then Self.” I simply lunged for the bathroom.

The other stunning advertisement was for an all-bran cereal, starring an actor playing a construction supervisor extolling the virtues of regularity. As he spoke, in the background, demolition and other activities occurred, each a not-so-subtle metaphor for an efficient intestinal system. I counted about six, culminating, I kid you not, with a dump truck tipping back and unloading its contents.

You’ll recall that in July, the Democrats participated in the first YouTube debate. Viewers from around the country submitted their questions via videotape and computer.

It was an entertaining, freewheeling evening, as robust and energetic as an old-fashioned town meeting in a beer garden. There were queries about just about everything, from a range of interrogators that included a gun nut and a computer-generated snowman fretting over global warming.

When startled, starchy Republicans saw the unscripted result, realizing that they, too, had a YouTube debate scheduled for Sept. 17, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and some of the others suddenly remembered that they had to wash their hair that night. But a stunned world responded with such force that the GOP changed direction and dragged themselves kicking and wailing into the world of reality television, finally settling on Nov. 28 for the big CNN/YouTube Florida fiesta.

Quick impressions: Fred Thompson’s so done he should have had a bone-handled serving fork stuck between his shoulders, although he did have the best single line of the evening when a munitions fan from Phoenix asked each candidate to describe their firearms collection: “I own a couple of guns, but I’m not going to tell you what they are or where they are.”

Mike Huckabee scored points by seeming the most sincere although he almost blew it with a glib response when asked what Jesus would do about the death penalty: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.” Ugh.

Biggest surprise: no question — from a disgruntled NYC firefighter or anyone — about Giuliani’s actions on 9/11 or the days and weeks immediately following, no question about the alleged lack of preparedness or the failure to truthfully inform rescue workers and the public about the toxic air quality in and around ground zero. Many had speculated that the possibility of such a question was one reason Rudy initially was reluctant to participate in the YouTube forum.

This, on the day the media reported a survey from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealing that children who were exposed to the dust cloud from the collapse of the Trade Center are twice as likely to be diagnosed with asthma. A study earlier this year found that ground-zero workers have an asthma diagnosis rate a dozen times greater than the general population.

It’s enough to make you sick.

Michael Winship, a native of Canandaigua, is a freelance television writer in Manhattan.